Incomes of whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians in the U.S., 1970 and 2016

The charts below show the distributions of white, black, Hispanic and Asian adults in the U.S. by their incomes in 1970 and 2016. The first set of charts shows the income distribution for a given group, such as Hispanics, in these two years. The second and third sets of charts compare the income distributions of blacks, Hispanics and Asians with the income distribution of whites for 2016 and 1970, respectively.

Adults in each racial and ethnic group are divided into 81 groups with incomes ranging from $0-2,499, $2,500-4,999, $5,000-7,499, and so on up to the highest income category of $200,000 or greater. Each chart shows the share of adults of a given race or ethnicity with incomes in the stated range.

How blacks, Hispanics and Asians compared with whites in 2016

How blacks, Hispanics and Asians compared with whites in 1970

“Income” refers to what is afforded a person by the combined resources of his or her household, whether the person had personal earnings or not. Thus, people’s incomes are represented by their household’s income adjusted for household size. All members of a household have the same income, which is expressed in 2016 dollars for both years.

The distributions are based on the adult, civilian household population, less adults living in households for which half or more of its income is imputed (allocated) by the U.S. Census Bureau. (See Methodology for details).

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